


Future Aspirations

by Lizardlicks



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Egg Laying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Mpreg, Oviposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:39:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardlicks/pseuds/Lizardlicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he starts screaming it drives a spike through your chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Aspirations

**Author's Note:**

> A little something to tide you over between the big fics. ;)  
> Beta'd by the indomitable [Ushauz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ushauz/pseuds/ushauz/works)

Purple is on your screen this time.  You roll your eyes and scan over the lines to see what emotional shit storm Eridan wants to drag you into this hour.  
  
CA: kar i need help  
  
When doesn’t he?  
  
CG: WHEN DON’T YOU.  
CA: fuckplease i need hel p nowww  
  
That flicks the switch on your internal alarm bell.  Your friend can be a self-centered, whiny little grublet about almost anything, but one of the things you have in common is never running out of ways to articulate, even when upset.  He’s been reckless with quests and downright stupid about going after his consorts.  Could it be that he bit off more than he can swallow this time?  
  
CG: OKAY, SHIT.  WHERE ARE YOU?  
CA: lowwaa  
CG: NO FLYING FUCK, NOOKSTINK. *WHERE* ON LOWAA?  
CA: hive  
  
That narrows it down considerably.  You haven’t been to Eridan’s land yet, but the occasional image captures he’s sent makes it look like a bleached, labyrinthian hell.  You’re not sure you could even find your way around that place with directions and surface positional tracker unit.  His hive is still plenty big, but at least its layout isn’t something out of a piece of troll Escher artwork.  
  
This quest will have to go on hold for now.  You only hope his being in his hive means he’s found some place relatively safe and out of the way to hide in till you can get there and sort things out.  
  
CA: hurry it hutrs  
  
Fuck.  
  
CG: FUCK.  
CG: I’M ON MY WAY.  JUST DON’T DIE UNTIL I GET THERE, ALRIGHT?  
  
Your digestive sack is hovering somewhere in the vicinity of your shoes now.  You stash your portable communication device and the quest items you’ve gathered so far and start backtracking to the gate that will get you LOWAA the fastest, ignoring the aggravated looks Jack gives you.  
  
“Hold things down till I get back,” you shout at him over your shoulder and just barely step out of the way of his thrown reply knife.  


* * *

  
  
It doesn’t take long to find Eridan, but every second between his last message and the time you finally manage to locate him is one too many.  He stopped answering your texts about half way through looking for the fifth gate in Rays and Frogs, and it took every measure of self control you had not to break your neck in a desperate, blind dash to finish the rest of the trip.  
  
 _You should have checked up on him sooner_ , a guilty part of your brain nags you.  You knew how wrapped up he can get in stupid, dangerous shit, leaving him alone this long was tempting fate.  
  
You find him in his ablutionblock, lying huddled in a tight ball on the floor.  The trembling wracking his body and his barely muffled whimpers confirm that he is at least still alive, and that’s a giant weight gone from your chest right there.  You can’t see anything immediately wrong with him though, which has you worried in a whole new way.    
  
“Eridan?  Hey, I’m here, you can chill out now.”  He doesn’t respond to you, only gulps down another wail and shakes.  
  
There aren’t any angels or game monsters in here or lurking outside.  No blood trail or signs of a struggle that would suggest he retreated after an injury either, which means whatever is wrong with him must be internal.  Your mental alarmist starts listing off everything that could mean.  What if he’s sick?  What if he needs medicine that no longer exists along with the rest of Alternia, would you have time to figure out exactly what that is and alchemize it?  
  
You have to grab hold of that yammering inner voice and shake it before it drives you into a needless panic.  Eridan can’t get help if you lose it now, and you haven’t even figured out the cause of his distress yet.  You move the rest of the way into the room, kneel beside him and reach out to touch his shoulder.  He flinches, mewls pathetically, and it breaks your heart a little, but then he’s grasping at your hand and giving you a wan smile.  
  
“Kar, oh god fuck.”  
  
“Yeah.  Yeah, it’s me, asshole, now calm down and tell me what’s wrong with you so I can fix it.”  You squeeze his fingers and brush a sweat dampened lock of hair out of his face.  He’s soaked in it, beads of perspiration gathering on his forehead to the point that Equius might be impressed, and he looks horribly pale.  
  
“It hurts,” he whines miserably.  
  
“I know it hurts,” you have to reign yourself in from just snapping at him, “but you’ve gotta tell me where.”  
  
“Down,” he manages to gasp.  At first you have no idea what he means, and you’re about to really, actually flip your shit on him, but then you glance lower down his body-  
  
You almost don’t see it because he’s still curled in a tight ball around the arm he keeps pressed to his abdomen like a grub in defense mode, but there’s a dark stain on one leg of his pants.  The smear of purple looks almost indecent to you for a moment, but the pain he’s in makes you suspicious and when you reach out to touched it your fingers come away tacky, not slick.  
  
He’s bleeding.  
  
He’s bleeding from his...  
  
Oh _god_ -  
  
“Oh god,” you whisper in dread.  
  
“Fuck, help me, Kar!”  His plea takes on a desperate note that does nothing to ease your own rising panic.  
  
“How,” you blurt, only after do you realize you said that out loud.  It can’t be helping Eridan’s state any, you need to keep it together.  
  
“Get them out!”  
  
Get what out?  Internal bleeding is one thing, but the only way he would be- be wounded there is from a trauma you really don’t want to think about.  You can’t imagine any of your friends doing that. Just trying to makes bile crawl up your proteinchute.  He’s not acting like he was attacked, though, and all his clothes are still perfectly intact.  More like something is trying force its way out, not in.  That thought makes you more sick to your stomach.  You aren’t even sure what the fuck is going on anymore. What are you supposed to do about this?  
  
He goes suddenly tense, breath hitching before he lets out a low moan, and to your rising horror you think you can actually see the bloodstain spread a little bit farther.  It lasts a few long, nerve-wracking minutes while he sucks in stifled breaths between grunts and soft groans, but finally whatever seized him lets up, and he falls into rough panting, sagging into the floor with a near sob.  Yeah, something is definitely trying to work its way out.  This is going to be awkward as fuck, but you think you need to get his pants off.  
  
“C’mon, up you get.  We need to get your clothes out of the way,” you tell him.  He nods weakly.  Modesty has gone out the window in favor of desperation.  You don’t want to try standing him up just yet, you have no idea what these things are or how much damage they’re doing, and you don’t want to move him too far until you do, so you just help him sit up with his back leaned into your chest.  He stays hunched with his arms protectively circling his belly, but tries to cooperate otherwise.  You have to push up his sweater to get to the fastenings of his trousers though, and when your fingers brush over the part of his stomach he isn’t covering, you both gasp.  
  
You can feel it, flesh tight and smooth over a swollen bump.  When you press gently, small, roundish feeling things give and slide under the skin.  It’s hard to notice with the way his clothes fit loose enough to hide the shape, but you’re starting to think of the way you’ve seen him lately, standing with shoulders pulled forward to drape his cape around him instead of letting it flare back like usual, and wonder how long this has been going on for.  At the time it had seemed a product of his sulking over his breakup with Feferi, but now you’re starting to feel like an ass for not noticing something was wrong sooner.     
  
Eridan turns his face into your neck and whimpers again.  
  
“How did this happen,” you ask him, trying to swallow down the new lump in your throat.  You can’t get horrifying pictures out of your head: some monster you haven’t encountered yet with glowing eyes, menacing teeth and claws and a dripping ovipositor, or one of his angels even-  
  
“Don’t,” he pleads softly into the collar of your sweater. “Please, not now.  Just help me.”  
  
You choke, the lump getting a hundred times bigger.  “Yeah, okay.  Just hang on, I’ll take care of you.”  
  
Shaky fingers work at the clasp of his pants till you finally get the button undone.  He helps you push them off by lifting his hips, but you have to do most of the work.  The smears of blood it leaves tracked down his legs make your stomach do another unpleasant jig, but there’s actually not as much of it as you first thought.  Pausing, you take a second to figure out what you want to do next before you decide that his stupid cape and scarf need to go too.  He’d probably bitch like nothing else when this is over if they got stained because you were careless.  Assuming he lives that long.    
  
No, oh no no no don’t have thoughts like that, bad thinkpan!  This is going to suck, but he’s going to be fine because you’re here to help him.  
  
For a moment after that you get stalled, not sure what else you can do.  You can feel him starting to shiver from the cold of his tiled floor, and instinctively you wrap your arms around his shoulders and pull him closer into your own warmth, rubbing at his arms.  It seems to help, he stills and sighs, leaning back into you like he was before.  
  
“What should I do now,” you ask him at a loss.  
  
“Can- can you fill the tub?  I think this might be easier in there.”  
  
You can definitely do that, and you tell him so, feeling a little relieved to find another job.  You ease yourself out from under him and move to his trap.  It’s ridiculously big and deep, though that isn’t surprising considering he’s a seadweller.  You turn the tap, and of course it works despite no longer having an actual water source through some convenience of the game.  You’re not sure what temperature to set it at, but he did seem to enjoy your body heat, so you ending up picking something that feels lukewarm to you and hope it isn’t too hot for him.    
  
“God,” he keens behind you, “Oh god, oh fuck hurry, Kar, they’re getting worse!”  Something inside you crumples painfully and thank Gamzee’s asshole clown gods it’s not your resolve.  You can’t make the water fill up any faster so you return to his side and help him start peeling off his sweater.  Naked is not any way you wanted to see Eridan Ampora, even less so with just how horribly vulnerable he looks, hunched and trembling in pain and fear.  This isn’t the same arrogant sea troll you’re used to, so sure of his own natural superiority.  It’s him at his lowest, and you’re overcome with a wash of pity so pale it’s dizzying.  
  
“I’ve got you,” you tell him gently, gathering him to your chest again.  “You can do this man.  I’ve got you, I’m here.”  
  
His arms go around your neck as you coax him to stand and hobble over to the ablution trap.  Like this, the bump is much more noticeable.  You realize he must have actually been taking pains to hide it, because there is no way it could have gotten this big without someone detecting it otherwise.  The basin is nearly full by the time you can get over to it, and when he lowers himself in with a groan it nearly overflows, but you shut off the tap with just enough space to leave a couple inches at the top.  He breathes a sigh, probably glad for the water taking his weight.  
  
“Is the temperature okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” he nods, “It’s good. This is good.”  Then he reaches for you, groping blindly as another spike of pain forces his eyes closed.  You grab his hand, let your fingers tangle, give him a tight squeeze and stroke your thumb over the back of his knuckles.  
  
“Don’t leawe,” he begs, so small sounding it rakes nails through your bloodpusher.  
  
“I won’t.  I’m right here, bro, I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
“Thanks,” he says and means it.  “This is gonna suck.”  
  
“Thought it did already.”  The smile he gives you isn’t a pleasant one.  
  
“It’s gonna suck more.”

 

* * *

  
When he starts screaming it drives a spike through your chest.  You can’t fucking watch this, but you swear to everything even remotely deific that you won’t leave him to suffer alone, so you tuck his head under your chin and fix your sight on the wall behind his trap while you croon to him.  Each peak of pain gets longer and closer together, and he squeezes your fingers tighter every time until they’re bruised and creaking in protest, but you refuse to let go.  At some point he moans, “Fuuuuck, I think I need to p- push.”  
  
“Go with it,” you tell him because you can’t think of any other advice to offer. “Don’t fight it Eridan, just do what feels right.”  You wish you have something better, that you could do something else to make this faster or less painful.  More than once you considered going to find Kanaya, or maybe Feferi for help, but you don’t want to leave him, or try to explain what’s happening over Trollian, and more, you don’t think he wants anyone else seeing him like this.  All you can do is hang on and offer placations while he tries to force these things from his body.  
  
When another cycle starts up, he grips you tight, bows his head and heaves.  At first nothing seems to happen at all, but after the first couple of passes he actually picks up a sort of rhythm, baring down with each rise in activity, collapsing back and breathing deeply as they taper off, sometimes falling into something almost resembling sleep as he rests to build up energy for the next one.  You coax him through each pass with anything you can think of, prodding him to keep pushing, telling him he’s doing a good job, all the while silently hoping it will be over soon.  You’re already exhausted, and can’t imagine the hell he’s feeling like by this point.  
  
Then on the next go he starts murmuring under his breath, something that gains strength and volume as he puts in more effort, “... c’mon, out- get out get out, you can do it, get out!”  He finishes with a shout then screams again, startling you, but after that he collapses back with a half sighed laugh, relief evident in every line of his body.  Your curiosity briefly overcomes the squick, and you venture a quick glance into the water.  Settled between Eridan’s legs is a tiny, white sphere barely larger than your fist.  
  
“Holy shit,” you gasp.  
  
“Ha ha, yeah,” he agrees wearily. “I made that.”  
  
He’s far from done though; you can see that.  His belly is still bumped out with more of the hitchhikers, and he doesn’t get much of a reprieve before the next wave comes on him.  Moment of curiosity over, you wrap him into your arms again and start whispering renewed encouragement.  
  
The next ones pass easier now, at least.  It only takes him around three or five tries each time to press a new sphere out where it joins the growing pile, leaving him looking a little less stretched and bloated with each addition.  The contractions have died down in strength considerably by the time he’s done with the last.  He had to mostly push it out under his own power, and the whole ordeal has left him a weakly shivering mess.  He leaves his head resting on your shoulder, panting slowly as you brush your claws through his wrecked hair.  
  
“You did it, you did so good,” you purr against his temple, press a kiss into the wet skin there.  “It’s over now, you did it.”  
  
“Mm,” he only hums a reply into your neck, letting you know he’s still conscious.  You let him rest like that for a few minutes, reluctant to deny him some down time, but the numbness in your legs from the extended kneeling is starting to get bothersome without a distraction.  Eventually, you have to rouse him from a doze so you can stand and stretch protesting joints and muscles.  He needs actual rest in a recuperacoon, too, not just a nap in bath water fouled by body fluids.  Once the flood of pins and needles starts to retreat out of your limbs and you trust yourself to bear some weight, you start helping him back out of his trap.  
  
He’s a limp puddle of fish troll, and you end up having to half carry, half drag his briny behind to his ‘coon.  Three steps outside of the ablution block, you feel his claws dig threateningly into your arm, and he growls.  
  
“The eggs, where are...  need t’ take care a them.”  
  
“Look at your sorry ass,” you say without heat. “You can’t even walk straight.  The only thing you’re taking is a long fucking sleep.”  
  
“... But-” he starts to argue, but you shoosh him.  
  
“I’ll handle it, don’t worry.”    
  
He sags, too tired to argue, and lets you haul him the rest of the way to his recuperacoon.  You surprise yourself by getting him deposited and arranged with relatively little slopping or splashing, despite the fact that a partially unconscious seadweller weighs a ton.  Making sure he’s settled, you linger beside him for a moment or two, spooning a couple handfuls of sopor over his forehead and combing it through his hair.  It’s unbearably pale; normally you wouldn’t dare to be flinging around this sort of affection outside of an established quadrant, but you can’t deny Eridan really needs this.  Has been needing more, for even longer, but that’s not your job right now.  
  
Not that you haven’t thought about it...  
  
No, there’s too much at stake with the game still, and other things need your attention, not just Eridan.  He’s still too needy and clingy, and you just don’t have time for that right now.  That’s even assuming he’d want a freakblood like you anywhere near a square after he found out about your mutation.  You’d have to tell him, too, you don’t keep shit like that from a moirail.  Maybe after this is all over you can sort out the chaos that is your quadrants.  
  
He’s clicking faintly, too worn out to start up a real purr, but reacting to your ministrations anyway.  The sound soon fades off with his lengthening breath.  Before his eyes flutter shut for the last time, he slurs at you, “D’nt tell ‘nyone, Kar.  Please don’t tell.”  
  
“I won’t,” you promise.  You really aren’t sure how you’d explain it anyway.  It’s enough to let him stop fighting sleep, and soon he’s fully under.  
  
Now you’re left with figuring out what to do with his eggs.  
  
It takes a little bit for you to work up your courage.  You move back into the block with trepidation and absolutely no idea what you’re going to do with them.  But you told Eridan you’d sort it out so now it’s your job.  He’d actually seemed concerned about them, so you doubt he wants to get rid of them, even though that would be the easiest thing.  Frankly, you don’t even know what they came from, if it was something bugfuck nasty that forced him into carrying its brood and now the spawn are going to hatch and harass you all.   His protectiveness could be a leftover hormone reaction, causing him to act like a lusus over the clutch he carried, but you aren’t going to chance it either way.  Best to just get them safe and dry for right now and let him make a decision when he wakes up.  You hope he’ll be more clear-headed by then.  
  
First you have to drain the water, stained nearly lavender, which you have to try very hard not to think overly much about as you roll up your sleeve.  Once that’s been done you can see the clutch clearly.  There’s five little round, white things in all.  Rummaging through Eridan’s cabinets rewards you with a stack of plush towels, the same ostentatious purple color as his blood that he likes to plaster over everything, as though some troll is going to forget.  You start scooping them out carefully, one at a time, and wiping them down as gingerly as you can.  
  
They’re heavier than you expected.  The shells have some give to them, but they prove to be tolerant of casual handling.  It’s only when you’ve finished tending the third one that you discover they aren’t precisely white.  Holding it up it the light to get a better look, you realize that the shell is only mostly opaque.  What you thought had been the color from the towel reflecting off the surface is actually a faint hint of something violet inside.  As you stare, you could swear you see a flicker of movement.  
  
These couldn’t actually be-  
  
Trolls don’t just... that sort of thing doesn’t happen.  
  
Right?  
  
You redouble your efforts to be cautious, just to be sure.    
  
When they’re cleaned to your satisfaction, you pile them into the middle of a fresh towel and bundle them up.  There isn’t really a good place to put them, and you don’t want to leave Eridan alone for very long in case he wakes up, so you take them with you.  He’s still sleeping when you come back into his respiteblock.  Not really a surprise, with what he went through you’re pretty sure he’s going to be out for a while.  You fetch his chair from his desk and drag it over so you can sit beside the recuperacoon, then deposit the egg collection in your lap, pulling your knees up to make them a nice little cradle on your stomach.  
  
Your palmhusk comes out next so you can start checking messages.  There’s an impressive amount of backlog which you only figure out why when you glance at the time display.  
  
Wait, fuck, it’s been how many hours?  Okay, no wonder Sollux and Terezi are doing a collected shitstorm summersault.  You shoot them both quick texts telling them to calm their rumblespheres and making up a quick cover that you were helping Eridan with a quest.  It’s close enough to the truth that you hope they’ll buy it.  Terezi is, of course, too sharp for anyone’s good and sniffs out that you aren’t telling her everything, but you point out that if you aren’t telling her, it’s because she isn’t supposed to know and blah, blah, blah.  You get sidetracked into another game of pester Karkat till he bursts a blood vessel in his brain since you can’t tell if she’s black flirting or red, and it passes the time for a bit.  
  
Kanaya’s trollian handle comes back from idle status, and you ask Terezi to hold for a second.  
  
CG: HEY, KANAYA, ARE YOU BUSY?  I NEED TO ASK YOU ABOUT SOMETHING REAL QUICK  
GA: I Am A Little Preoccupied At The Moment  
GA: But I Think It Would Be Best If Perhaps I Took A Small Break Before This Amphibian Makes Me Do Something Particularly Unladytroll-like  
CG: GETTING BEAT BY A FROG?  I THOUGHT WE HAD OUR BEST PLAYER ON THAT JOB.  
GA: This One Is Proving Spectacularly Vexing  
GA: I Could Actually Use The Extra Help If You Get A Chance To Spare Some Time  
  
You glance down at the eggs and then to Eridan.  
  
CG: IT WILL HAVE TO WAIT TILL I’M DONE HERE BUT I’LL DROP BACK TO YOUR LAND WHEN I GET A CHANCE.  
CG: UH, THAT QUESTION I HAD...  
GA: Oh Of Course  
GA: I Apologize It Slipped My Mind  
GA: Go Ahead And Ask  
CG: HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF SOMETHING CRAZY HAPPENING LIKE-  
CG: OKAY, THIS IS GOING TO SOUND REALLY FUCKING STUPID SO DON’T LAUGH.  
GA: I Will Not  
CG: HAVE YOU EVER HEARD STORIES OF TROLLS THAT COULD LAY EGGS?  
GA: That Is Certainly A Crazy Story I Will Admit  
CG: YOU’RE LAUGHING AT ME, AREN’T YOU.  
GA: Not At All  
GA: As You Said The Story Is Crazy But I Have In Fact Heard It  
  
No fucking way!  Wow... really?    
  
CG: REALLY?  WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF THAT EVEN HAPPENING?  
GA: Extremely Low I Can Assure You  
CG: DO YOU THINK ANY OF OUR PLAYERS COULD HAVE GOTTEN A... UH, ABILITY LIKE THAT?  
GA: If There Is It Is Quite Infinitesimal  
GA: Karkat If You Are Worried About The Future Viability Of Our Species You Need Not  
GA: I Have Full Possession Of The Matriorb In My Sylladex And It Is Impossible To Remove Without The Correct Key  
  
You hadn’t been at that moment, but that didn’t mean the thought never crossed your mind.  
  
CG: BUT WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO YOU, OR WE CAN’T FIND THE KEY?  
GA: We Will Find It When The Time Is Right  
GA: I Have Full Confidence That Everything Will Work Out Exactly As It Needs To Be In The End  
GA: I Know You Like To Make Sure Every Angle Is Covered  
GA: But I Do Not Think You Need To Be Inventing New Things To Be Worried Over  
  
Shit, no kidding, you’ve got enough right now.  You absently pet one of the eggs, feeling its warmth.  They make you feel strangely content, touching and being close to them.  You think that maybe they like the heat of your palmhusk so you adjust it to have the cooling fan venting on them.  Sollux’s hiveframes would probably be a better place; the bees keep it at a constant, perfect temperature for their own larvae, but that’s off the table until and unless Eridan decides to tell anybody else about his new additions.  You also don’t think you can sneak a bunch of eggs into Sollux’s computers without his noticing.  Or the bees.  Especially not if they hatch.  
  
Kanaya keeps talking to you.  
  
GA: I Do Appreciate The Concern Over My Well Being  
GA: But I Also Think I Am Fully Capable Of Handling Any Construct That The Game May Offer Me  
GA: As Well As My Duties Here Being Not Overly Physically Taxing  
GA: Just Mentally So  
CG: YEAH SORRY ABOUT THAT FROG.  
CG: I’LL GET OVER THERE AS SOON AS I CAN, OKAY?  
GA: No Rush Yet  
GA: But I Do Thank You Karkat  
CG: WELL, THANKS FOR MAKING ME FEEL BETTER.  
CG: SOMETIMES I THINK THIS GAME IS PURPOSEFULLY FUCKING WITH MY HEAD.  
GA: You Are Always Welcome  
  
Well there’s at least one theory confirmed plausible, if unlikely.  You’ll have to wait till Eridan wakes up and then see if he feels like talking to find out anything else.  While you’re at it, you cycle through your chump roll to check up on the rest of the idiot crew and make sure they haven’t gotten themselves into anything overly imbecilic.  You manage to get Jack to actually answer the spare husktop you gave him to keep in contact, and he starts spamming you with commands to get your ass back there now and finish the fucking quest.  You regret the decision to give him a means of contact immediately and block him.  It will make him more pissed probably, but you’re getting reasonably good at dodging his knives, and you don’t want to deal with his tantrum right now.  
  
“You’re still here.”  
  
You very nearly jump out of your skin, fumbling the palmhusk, when you hear Eridan’s voice.  You weren’t expecting him to be awake this quickly.  He peers at you over the rim of his recuperacoon, squinting without his glasses and still looking far too haggard than what you would consider healthy.  His hair is a bedraggled mess, and there are bags under his eyes that are making a good effort to rival your own in darkness.  
  
“God dammit, what are even doing attempting consciousness yet,” you scold him.  “And of course I’m still here. You didn’t think I’d just leave you to fend for yourself after that, did you?”  
  
“Mng.  I tried sleepin longer but somethin just kept stickin in my brain and wouldn’t let me.”  
  
“How do you feel?”  He chuckles humorlessly at the question.  
  
“Like wrestlin a cholerbear woulda been more fun.  Also like I newer wanna pail anythin ever again.”  
  
“Like you’ve ever pailed in the first place.”  You try to keep your tone light, teasing like you’re always joking around with each other, but he looks away from you, face falling.  
  
“How the fuck do you think I got into this mess, Kar?”  
  
It hits your gut like punch from an ogre.  He just flat-out confirmed everything for you, that the eggs really are his.  You’re holding a clutch of unborn troll grubs.  
  
He blinks slowly, still uncertain and sleep mussed.  Then his sponge switches gears as he spots the nest of eggs in your lap.  
  
“Are those them?”    
  
“Yeah.”  
  
You recaptchalogue your palmhusk and scoot your butt from the chair to the floor beside him, so he can have a better look.  He pulls himself upright and holds his hands out, gesturing for one, so you place it into his outstretched hands and watch him bring it to his chest where he starts to softly purr at it.  
  
“Fuck,” he coughs around the sound in his throat, “holy fuck, I didn’t think...  I didn’t really care about them at all till now.”  You’re starting to think that’s actually a latent instinct.  Something ancient and long forgotten that became obsolete when trolls evolved to make use of Mothergrubs.  It would certainly explain why you’re still having a strong reaction to them when they aren’t even yours in any sense of the word.  You don’t tell him that though.  
  
Instead you let one of your gnawing questions get the better of you and ask, “ Who was it, Vriska?”  You only reign in the urge to punch yourself in the face for being dumb after that because it might upset the pile you’re holding.  
  
Eridan grimaces.  “Thank god, no.  Things are already fuckin awkward with her. This would make it a thousand times worse.”  
  
That catches you off guard.  Vriska was the only troll you knew for certain Eridan had that kind of quadrant filled with.  He’d been pining like a kenneled barkbeast for Feferi to move into something a little more flushed, but as far as you know she rejected him pretty soundly.  So who else does that leave?  
  
“It’s no one you know.  Knew,” he tells you since he must have caught the look on your face.  “Guess he’s atoms and space dust with the rest a home by now.  Heh.”    
  
He looks... relieved about it?  What in the bulge festering fuck is that about?  The gut punched feeling isn’t going away, and you have a very unpleasant sensation that it’s about to get worse, but you have to ask.  
  
“Eridan.  What actually happened?”    
  
“A mistake, okay?” he snarls without looking at you, lips curling viciously,  “I fucked up, an it was terrible, an then it got worse because apparently I’m some sort a- a freak-a-fuckin-nature throwback!  Don’t tell anyone, Kar, you ca- can’t tell ‘em...”  
  
He breaks, swallows back a sob that you heard anyway, and fuck, you break with him.  The recuperacoon wall and the way you have to sit to keep the eggs balanced make this awkward at best, but you grab him by the shoulders and pull him into a hug anyway.  He stifles another cry which makes him shudder and goes willingly into your embrace.  You feel sick.  Like you just ate something poisoned, but you can’t get it to come back up, nothing ever will, so you wrap him tighter instead.  
  
“You can’t tell anyone, Kar, I m- mean it, they can’t know I-”  He gulps down a shaky breath, trying to get his words under control while you just nod along, smearing sopor onto your cheek and chin.  “Everyone already thinks I’m a desperate loser, they’re gonna think I’m a- a bucket slut, too.”  
  
“I won’t tell,” you hiss fiercely, “I fucking swear it, I won’t tell a soul.”  
  
“I’ll kill you if you do.”  His growl takes you aback.  You jerk away on gut reaction at a seadweller making those kind of sounds at you, but not fast enough, because Eridan thrusts a hand out and grabs you by the throat.  “See if I won’t,” he rumbles in a threatening buzz, but his eyes are blown wide with hurt and fear, clouded over with unshed tears, and even when you should be terrified, you’re overcome with pity for the millionth time tonight.  
  
Screw you with the sharpest, most rusty thing the universe can find, apparently you’re feeling suicidal tonight too, because the idea that flies into your thinkpan is not one you thought you would ever entertain in a hundred thousand sweeps.    
  
While Eridan is still baring his fangs and flaring out his fins, you dig your claws sharply into your palm until you feel wetness starting to seep between your fingers.  His shocked recoil is instant when you hold the hand up to his face.  It takes you longer to get you breath back, windtube screaming from where he’d been squeezing it in his claws, but you force a steady voice when you do.  
  
“Now you’ve got one of my secrets.  My _biggest_ secret.  I’ll make a pact with you: I won’t share yours if you don’t share mine.”  
  
He stares at you, too quiet for too long, pressed against the opposite side of his recuperacoon while he clutches his single egg like a talisman.  You’re starting to worry you made a huge miscalculation when he seems to catch back up with reality.  
  
“Gl’bgylob’s tits, Kar.”  It’s barely a whisper.  
  
That wasn’t an actual answer.  
  
“Well, yes or no, Ampora,” you prompt him.  He nods slowly, and you let go of the breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding in a sigh.  You discreetly wipe your palm off on the towel and try to bury your disgust at the feeling of your own blood.  “Guess we’re all freaks here one way or another anyway,” you try to joke it off.  
  
“Yeah, but... wow.  I mean, I knew you were a swillblood-”  
  
“Hey!” You snap, and he flicks his fins back.  
  
“Sorry.  I guess I just wasn’t expecting that.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting a troll to start popping out spawn, either,” you retort lamely.  He sinks down into the slime a little, sulking, but otherwise derailed from crazy murder territory for the moment.  
  
A silence stretches out between you, not quite uncomfortable but not really companionable either.  He distracts himself for a few minutes by caressing and chirring to his egg while you give him some time to calm down.  When he seems wound down enough, you prod him with another question.  
  
“What are you going to do with them?”  He doesn’t seem keen on getting rid of the little suckers if the way he’s acting is anything to go by.  
  
“Hell, I don’t know.”  The thought makes him honestly look distressed.  “I ain’t a lusus, Kar.  these little guys need someone what will take care a them proper, an I’m not cut out for that.”  
  
“You look like you’ve got the instincts for it,” you tell him because he does look already attached to his offspring.  
  
“Instincts ain’t all there is, though.  I can’t ewen keep from fuckin up my own self, how am I supposed to do good by them?”  
  
You don’t have an answer.  
  
He falls quiet again, lost in thought before he looks back up to you.  
  
“You take them.”  
  
“What?” you squeak. “Why me?”  
  
“Because you know how to take care a people, Kar.  You’ve been handlin’ my shit an ewery thin the game’s thrown at you on top a ewerybody else’s meltdowns an conniptions.  An... I don’t wanna trust anyone else with this right now.”  
  
You want to yell at him, tell him that you’re just as bad of a fuck up.  Karkat Vantas is the ass of paradox space’s biggest joke, a kid hatched with too much ambition, pent-up self-hatred, a socially crippling mutation, and something to prove.  You helped kick off the end of the world for god’s sake!  And you constantly talk a big game about being team leader, but all you’ve managed so far is to off everybody’s lusi and solve a couple quest puzzles.  You’re the last person who should be responsible for the safety and well being of what could well be the future of your species.  
  
But when he passes the egg he’s been tending back to you, you take it.  Returning it to the rest, you say, “Just for now.  Until we get through the game, okay?”  Then you find a blank card and captchalogue the set.    
  
They’ll stay suspended in your sylladex, hopefully out of harm’s way.  If something happens to you it will be a lost cause, but you were planning on joining Kanaya anyway.  A little frog catching won’t be too dangerous.  You’ll just have to tell Jack to finish the puzzle you were working on without you and let him be pissed about it.  
  
Eridan is satisfied enough with that.  He sinks himself back into the sopor because he wrung out what little energy he managed to recover with those emotional acrobatics.  You stay guarding him while he drifts back into sleep, wait until he’s good and under.  He still looks like something your lusus dragged home once, but rest should help.  
  
When you’re certain he’s not going to wake up again anytime soon, you go track down his culinaryblock and find enough food stuffs to throw together something quick that will keep well in his thermal hull.  You leave it in the middle of the shelf at eye level with a note taped to it that reads, ‘ _EAT THIS, FUCKSTAIN._ ’  You also send him a message through Trollian set to deliver when he next logs on, telling him in great detail how you will rip off his gaudy-ass fins and stuff them up his wastechute if he even thinks about trying to start shit up with his consorts for the next night or two.  The fish troll is officially on ‘coon rest.  
  
Once you’re finished with that, you abscond from the shiphive and start to work your way back through the gates, with the weight of your new burden never straying from your mind.  You wonder if this is how Kanaya feels all the time and resolve to actually try talking to her for once when it isn’t a semi-emergency.  


* * *

  
  
A couple hours later, you’re miserably sunk into swamp water up to your calves and wading after a giant blue bastard of a frog when you hear the chime of an incoming message.  The amphibian pauses on a sunken log, lumbers around to face you and puffs up its throat with a ugly sounding croak.  
  
“Fine, I’ll look at it.  You’re dinner if you hop away, though,” you warn it sternly.  It blinks at you passively and croaks again.  There’s only one purple colored word on the screen when you flick open your huskpad.  It simply reads:  
  
CA: thanks  
  



End file.
